Rafael de la Cruz
Rafael de la Cruz is a character on Plagued. He was created by Drew on June 2, 2013. Personality Rafael has never been known for being pleasant to be around. While he's rarely necessarily moody, he does tend to be irreverent and often offensive. It's not that he doesn't think before he speaks, he just likes to be a dick to others. There are seldom times where he is genuinely nice, and very few people would refer to him as genuinely charming. Very rarely will he genuinely admit to defeat or weakness; because he is so prideful, he tends to be callous and will almost always put himself before others. Rafael's selfishness usually results in interpersonal conflicts with others. He loves to fight and usually sees physical conflict as a game. His abrasiveness makes it very easy for him to pick fights with others, and he finds it amusing to push those with weaker to personalities to become upset. Despite this, Rafael's saving grace is a good sense of humor. He can take jokes toward him in stride (although he'll never turn down a compliment). He loves to drink and party and he is absolutely extroverted, although he doesn't care much for what other people think of him and he doesn't often care to talk about his emotions or feelings, because there is rarely very much to talk about. Rafael seldom dwells on his thoughts and emotions He's not necessarily stupid, either; he can think logically and strategize quite well, in fact. Usually he doesn't bother utilizing this skill, although he does like to read frequently. Very few things actually frighten Rafael, and he is courageous, sometimes stupidly so. He doesn't tend to make many friends, but those he does make, he is incredibly loyal to. When he believes that a friend has betrayed him, however, he will go to great lengths for revenge and will be mercilessly cruel to anyone he considers a traitor to him personally. History Rafael Alejandro de la Cruz was born to Isabel and Alejandro de la Cruz in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, in the barrio of Minillas. He was the first of five children, all boys. The second child, César, was born four years younger, the third and fourth, Luis and Óscar, were twins born the year after, and the fifth child, Salvador, was born the year after them. Only a few months after Salvador was born, when Rafael was six, Isabel was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Because they caught the illness too late to treat it, Isabel had only a few months to live. Rafael kept his mother company while she was in hospice, devastated that he was losing his mother but understanding like no other six-year-old should that it was unavoidable. His mother died on his seventh birthday three months later. Although Rafael was still a child, that left him often in charge of his younger siblings. Alejandro was working almost all the time to support his children financially. Because his younger siblings were so small, he had to provide care to them full-time, giving him very little time to himself. When he began going to school, his father was forced to hire a babysitter during the day when Rafael was out. Because they could only afford to have someone taking care of the children when he was at school, there was little time for Rafael to have friends or take part in any extracurricular activities. He struggled in school, rarely bothering to do the homework and usually spending his time during school reading, a hobby he enjoyed but had no time for at home. His teachers and classmates usually ignored him. By the time his brothers were old enough to at least be sufficient left alone, the fourteen-year-old Rafael was miserable. He began leaving his brothers alone more often, upping his social life but finding out that it was much more difficult to make friends now that he had missed out on the more essential years for developing relationships and social skills. He found right away that it was easiest to be a class clown, and that when he was mean to the people nobody liked, other people would like him more. However, this regressed into an affinity for taunting the vulnerable. While he wasn't necessarily cruel, he did find it the most amusing to be a bully. He had a few friends, who he was certainly friendly with, although, unbeknownst to him, they were only friends with him to avoid his teasing. It became apparent when Rafael was seventeen that one of the friends he'd made earlier on when he was just getting time to have a social life had been saying terrible things about him behind his back. Rafael, incensed that someone he'd trusted and genuinely liked had betrayed him, immediately got violent. He was given a two-week suspension for beating up the traitor, and he continued to antagonize him throughout the rest of high school. Right after Rafael turned eighteen, right out of high school, Alejandro was hit by a car coming home from work. The accident left him paralyzed from the waist down, unable to walk and unfit for work. While he was receiving disability compensation, the measly checks were not enough to support his family. Rafael found work in a slaughterhouse, working in gross conditions for just enough money to support his family in the most meager way possible. More than a few nights, Rafael went hungry while his brothers and his father ate. He didn't mind this so much; he cared very deeply for his family and wanted to take care of them. He continued this miserable work for four years, barely making enough for rent and basic utilities as well as food. When César turned eighteen, he took up work as well, which made life much easier for Rafael, and he didn't have to work quite as much to keep his family provided for. As his other siblings graduated and became of a working age as well, Rafael realized that he was no longer needed as much. When he was twenty-four, he decided to join the U.S. Army instead of stick around as only another mouth for his family to have to feed. He didn't think very long on this decision, eager to get away from Puerto Rico and the hardships he'd had to help his family through. Rafael spent three years in the army, living in the northeastern United States the entire time. Most people in the military referred to him only as "Cruz" -- it wasn't his entire last name, but he didn't care enough to bitch about it. He loved being in the army, being active. He kept up with his family in Puerto Rico, sending them what money he wasn't using. They didn't seem to miss him too much, and his abrasive personality didn't earn him many friends in the military. On his third year, in February 2008, the dead began to rise. Cruz was moved immediately to Safe Haven, where he joined the military presence there right away, not looking to climb in rank, perfectly content at his level. New Haven gained prevalence in Safe Haven not long thereafter, preaching that they wouldn't survive long if they focused only on defense and didn't take an active approach to attacking the supernatural forces that had begun to invade Fort York. Although he was supposed to disagree with the terrorist group, he agreed with New Haven's sentiments, believing that an offensive approach to the problems in Fort York would be much more beneficial than simply hiding and relying entirely on that. He quietly affiliated himself with New Haven, in secret, so he could maintain his status in the Safe Haven military, planning to only make himself known as a member of New Haven when the takeover of Safe Haven finally went through. Category:Humans Category:Males Category:Active Category:Characters